Lola Beltrán, (born 1931?, Sinaloa, Mexico—died March 24, 1996, Mexico City, Mexico) (MARÍA LUCIA BELTRÁN ALCAYAGA), Mexican singer who , infused mariachi ballads with such drama, emotion, and style that she came to be known as Lola la Grande, the queen of mariachi. Her regal bearing was enhanced by extravagant costuming and ornate jewels and by the drama with which she clutched her trademark shawl. Beltrán began singing when she was a young child, and in 1953 she moved with her mother to Mexico City in hopes of breaking into show business. While working as a secretary at a radio station, she performed on one of its weekly talent shows. Within a year she was starring in her own show. For more than 40 years, her popularity did not wane. Besides performing for a number of Mexico’s presidents and other world leaders, she toured extensively. Beltrán was featured in some 50 musical motion pictures and recorded scores of albums. In many songs, including her signature "Cucurrucucu paloma," which became a classic, her heartfelt expressions of the melancholy despair of love and betrayal left her listeners inspired and moved. Her "Soy infeliz" was the opening theme for Pedro Almodóvar’s hit motion picture Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988).

EXPLORE these related biographies:

American singer and actress whose exceptional talents and vulnerabilities combined to make her one of the most enduringly popular Hollywood icons of the 20th century. Frances Gumm was the daughter of former vaudevillians Frank Gumm and Ethel Gumm, who operated the New Grand Theatre in Grand Rapids, Minn., where on Dec. 26, 1924, at age 2 1 2, Frances...

American popular singer widely known as the “King of Rock and Roll” and one of rock music’s dominant performers from the mid-1950s until his death. Presley grew up dirt-poor in Tupelo, moved to Memphis as a teenager, and, with his family, was off welfare only a few weeks when producer Sam Phillips at Sun Records, a local blues label, responded to his...

American folksinger who moved from folk to rock music in the 1960s, infusing the lyrics of rock and roll, theretofore concerned mostly with boy-girl romantic innuendo, with the intellectualism of classic literature and poetry. Hailed as the Shakespeare of his generation, Dylan sold tens of millions of albums, wrote more than 500 songs recorded by more...